


i asked god to give me strength

by frostbittenradicals



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Death, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, High Fantasy, Medical, POV Second Person, Tieflings, Vignette, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 04:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostbittenradicals/pseuds/frostbittenradicals
Summary: A month into his time as a chaplain and combat medic, Tiir finally breaks.





	i asked god to give me strength

“’m dying—‘m dying—” The head in your lap chokes again and a fresh river of blood spills over its deathly pale lips. The human’s chest convulses with loud, crackling half-gasps as she fights to take in a full breath, a harsh, wet, terrible sound that makes your soul shiver. You squeeze her cold, trembling hand tighter and stroke the backs of her rigid fingers with your thumb.

 “You’re okay. You’re okay.” You whisper insistently, as if the lie itself is a spell that can do anything to end her suffering sooner than nature will. “You’re not going to die.”

Tears surge down her cheeks, taking some of the grime and soot stuck to her deathly pale skin with it. She opens her mouth and lets out a gurgling sob followed by a pathetic effort to spit some of the blood out. “I’m scared,” she finally manages to croak, looking directly into your eyes with more lucidity than you’ve ever seen from someone with as little blood left as she has. She looks at you like you have pupils.

“’m—so—scared…”

“You’re headed to somewhere better,” you whisper. “Save your strength.”

She lets out another sob, the last one before her fingers gradually begin to relax and her breathing starts to grow shallower.

Her neck loses its livid tension and her head rolls to the side, spilling the rest of the hot blood that’s welled in her mouth onto your thigh. The harsh lines pain had carved into her face fade as it goes slack, but there is nothing of the peace you’ve heard described in so many accounts of death. Only blankness. The dying do not pass with their eyes closed here; it is your job to gently lower their eyelids, even if your touch leaves twin stripes of blood in the process.

You whisper the same prayer you’ve said too many times today, then lower her to the ground and begin to carefully search her person for any abandoned belongings. There’s no death letter in her breast pocket, nothing to return to loved ones. You almost dismiss them as entirely empty until your index finger brushes cool, smooth metal at its greatest depths.

A small silver pin, with twin branches of holly and oak crossed over each other, a simpler version of the amulet around your neck. Carefully, you put it back. _You’ll need this._

Your knees crack and some dirt falls to the ground as you finally stand and remove one of the thin, bright white shrouds that identify the dead from your satchel and drape it over her. You note that the face it covers looks about eighteen.

She is not the last one today. You save fifteen before nightfall temporarily ends the deafening rumbles and cracks of combat. You do not count the ones you lose.

Your feet and your body and your soul ache as you trudge toward the creek behind the field hospital, doing your best to ignore the moans and screams that come from the other side of the canvas as you pass. They’re mixed with familiar voices saying the same things you have all day; the tones and diction are enough to give you a pretty good idea of how many of them are dying.

You fall to your knees when you reach the stream’s edge, hardly noticing an errant pebble that presses uncomfortably into your right shin as you reach into your robes and shakily produce the small amulet that hasn’t left your person since you turned nineteen. The half-coagulated blood on your fingertips smears over the inlaid diamond “berries” and silver holly leaves surrounding them and sinks into the finely engraved veins of the oak leaves as you hold it up and study it like it’s the first time you’ve seen it – anything to look at, anything, as long as it’s not the devastation behind you. 

“Why?” You whisper, as if somehow he’ll hear you. The single word is all it takes for the shuddering sobs you’ve been holding back for the past month to finally win all at once, crashing over you with such force that you can barely manage to breathe.

“Why are you letting this happen?”


End file.
